The third lecture in the series of '9B Talks' realized within the 9th International İstanbul Biennial will take place on the 2nd of February, Wednesday at Goethe-Institut, Teutonia with the participation of the German artist Erik Göngrich. The lecture titled 'Starving For Embarrassing Architecture- In Los Angeles and in İstanbul too' will start at 18:30 pm. The '9B Talks -III' in which Erik Göngrich is going to speak about his previous works and his project for the İstanbul Biennial in detail, will be free of charge and carried out with simultaneous translation.

Portrait of the Artist

Erik Göngrich, produces projects which question the image of the cities he has visited such as Berlin, Paris, Buenos Aires, Mexico-City, İstanbul and Los Angeles and the experiences of their citizens in combination with his architectural knowledge and multimedia arts. In Göngrich's tracing and understating of the city, he prefers to use a language that is visually interesting and emotionally warm instead of a hygienic language shared between architects and theorists. He examines how inhabitants of these cities use public space from a social and aesthetic point of view through photographic descriptions, books, drawings, installations, tours and interviews.

In his lecture, Göngrich will talk about an earlier project titled 'Starving for Embarrassing Architecture' in which he investigated the image of Los Angeles and the connections between the city's architecture and sculpture through cycling around the city for six months taking photographs and interviewing its inhabitants. 'Starving for Embarrassing Architecture' contrasts photographic documentation of everyday architecture and situations in Los Angeles with drawings portraying the utopian wishes and longings for the ideal life and work space of the Angelinos. Here, the artist employs embarrassment as a means of liberation from the rigid, static and formal rules of architecture in his artistic interventions and architectural propositions. For the 9th İstanbul Biennial, Göngrich will turn the focus of this exhibition from individual/private space to public space.

Göngrich will also speak of a project he realized in İstanbul, during a six-month stay in 2000, titled 'Picnic-City' in which he concentrated on what lies beyond the tiny section of İstanbul that the average tourist manages to catch a glimpse of. Göngrich examined the peculiar way of living with and making use of public space in İstanbul that can turn even a highway junction into a picnic site with total disregard of an established urban, historical, or socio-political order. For the artist who is going to ask 'what is a ideal common living and meeting place in İstanbul?' during his one-month residency in İstanbul, '9B Talks- III' be his opportunity to start a dialogue into the many uses of public space in İstanbul.

Erik Göngrich (born 1966) is a scientific co-worker at the Institute of Fine Arts, Section Architecture at the University of Karlsruhe. Recently, the artist has exhibited at various cities such as Münich, Berlin and Los Angeles. Erik Göngrich lives and works in Berlin since 1991.

For more information about the artist.

9B TALKS - III 2 February 2005, Wednesday-18:30 pm Goethe-Institut Teutonia Galip Dede Cad. No:85 - Tünel